Category: In The News

Headlines Humor 1

Humorous tweaks on recent News Headlines, from our favorite Massachusetts Liberal.

WORLD NEWS

Hu Assures U.S. That China is No Threat

“If you can’t trust your banker, who can you trust?”

Embodiment of Evil Baby Doc Duvalier Makes Surprise and Unwelcome Return to Haiti

Came back for the Tonton Macoute reunion.

ALSO IN THE NEWS . . .

Floating Ark Hotel Will Survive Global Ecological Disaster

Offers guests the ultimate in luxury after everyone else has perished.

 

U. S. NEWS

Poll: Americans Overwhelmingly Approve Most Provisions in New Health Law

But desperately want it repealed, according to Republicans

House GOP Group Proposes to Trim Budget by $2.5 Trillion

They’d begin by cutting taxes.

Jeff Immelt Appoints Obama as Key Advisor

Latest move in pro-government tilt for General Electric

Hu Returns to China With Deal For 200 Jets, Other Goods

In return, we get to keep two giant pandas for a little while longer.

Alabama Governor: Non-Christians “Are Not My Brothers”

Back at ya, Gov. Y’all are more like weird, annoying cousins.

MISCELLANEOUS

Study: Claims That Most Couples Argue on Thursday Nights at 8

7 Central. But consult your local listings.

PEOPLE

Italian PM Berlusconi Denies Wrongdoing

Says he didn’t know that the teenage prostitute that he didn’t have sex with was underage at the time they didn’t have sex.

 

MEDIA

Fed Okays Comcast Purchase of NBC

Gains control of Conan’s masturbating bear, among other “intellectual property” assets.

KEITH OLBERMANN LEAVES MSNBC

Who he calls “the worst people in the world.”

BUSINESS

$4 Gasoline, $5 Coffee Predicted

Some may choose to take the bus, drink gasoline.

Goldman Sachs Reports 53% Drop in Earnings

Send your bailout check to: Goldman Sachs, 200 West Street, New York, NY 10282.

Starbucks to Debut 31-oz “Trenta” Cup Size

Trenta means “thirty” . . . or in this context “far too much” in Italian.

SCIENCE

Scientists Find New Life Forms in Unexpected Places

For instance, the back of your refrigerator.

Kangaroos Originated in South America

Island-hopped to Australia.

Researchers Successfully Test Tiny Remote- Controlled Ingestible Capsule

Pill packed with camera, transmitter and three miniaturized researchers, one of them quite beautiful (sorry – you probably have to be my age to get this one).

HEALTH / MEDICINE

Study: 129 Million Americans Under 65 Have Preexisting Conditions

They all suffer from delusions.

Study: Education Helps Slow Dementia

And vice versa.

TECHNOLOGY

Defense Contractors Developing Optically Camouflaged “Invisible” Tanks

Eventually they’ll make consumer version for soccer moms.

 

Pew Study: The Internet Is Not Destroying Society

Finds it was already ruined.

LIFESTYLE

Study: Attractive People Have Higher IQs

Study was apparently funded by attractive people. Still, to be safe, you might want to ask the homely nerd for help with your homework.

CRIME

Biggest Single-day Mafia Take-Down In History: Bobby Glasses, Vinny Carwash, Jack the Whack, Junior Lollipops Indicted

But SpongeBob Squarepants, Donald Duck, Turkey Lurkey, and Chuck E. Cheese lawyer up and walk.

EDUCATION

Half of All Students Learn Nothing in First Two Years of College

The other half learns nothing in last two years.

ADVERTISING

Rush Limbaugh “Straight Shooter” Billboard Removed From Tucson Highway

NRA calls removal “unwarranted and ill-advised.”

 

FACTOID

Average American Spent 34 Hours Sitting in Traffic Last Year

Doesn’t count drivers who left their cars in the middle of the highway, engine running, never to return.

TRAVEL

Tourists Name Los Angeles Rudest City

Especially people who live at addresses mistakenly listed on “star maps”.

NEW PRODUCTS

It’s a $7350 Toilet!

Some of us spend half our lives sitting on one, so why not sit on the very best of thrones?  http://technolog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/01/19/5877807-high-tech-toilet-is-super-luxe-and-super-expensive?pc=25&sp=25

What makes this toilet different from every other toilet on the market? Price. $7350, at Snap-a-Fish.

Some Amusing Twitter Tweets Floating Through Cyberspace During Obama’s SOTU address

“Congrats, parents of America. All of your Baby Einstein toys and your posh suburban preschools, and your kids are still the dumbest (bleep)s born in generations. Way to go.”

OBAMA: “If you want to make a difference in the life of a child, become a teacher!”

Or an X-Box 360! Whichever!

“I always thought Boehner’s tan was a vanity issue. But now I realize that it’s leather chair camouflage.”

“America will seize its ‘Sputnik moment’ as soon as it’s finished watching Jersey Shore.”

“How low have our politics sunk that people are congratulating themselves for sitting next to each other?”

“Oh hey, look! – there’s a bunch of a**holes in suits sitting around talking about sh*t that’ll never get done!”

“Boehner’s tear duct tampons seemed to have worked well tonight. ”

“This sh*t isn’t going to run long and cut into Cougar Town is it???”

BREAKING NEWS Boehner Declares End to Civility: ‘Our Long National Nightmare is Over’

“The Tea Party needs a leader with more credibility than Michele Bachmann. I nominate Snooki”

“Michele Bachmann will push Tea Party agenda, including ‘Don’t Add, Don’t Spell’.”

“What the hell is Bachmann looking at? She looks like one of those “eyes following you” paintings, but with a corporation behind it! She’s probably looking off-camera at Sarah Palin’s hand”

This Just In!

  • Hundreds of federal agents rounded up by mob
  • Baby Doc sublets Paris apartment to Noriega
  • White House honors Hu with takeout state dinner
  • Apple sees Jobsless recovery
  • Weather forces birds to cancel all flights
  • Outback Steakhouses sues Outback Outhouses
  • Deregulation blamed for fewer regulations
  • Bullies beat expectations

Blame the Cold Winters on Global Warming

As global temperatures have warmed and as Arctic sea ice has melted over the past two and a half decades, more moisture has become available to fall as snow over the continents. So the snow cover across Siberia in the fall has steadily increased.

The sun’s energy reflects off the bright white snow and escapes back out to space. As a result, the temperature cools. When snow cover is more abundant in Siberia, it creates an unusually large dome of cold air next to the mountains, and this amplifies the standing waves in the atmosphere, just as a bigger rock in a stream increases the size of the waves of water flowing by.

The increased wave energy in the air spreads both horizontally, around the Northern Hemisphere, and vertically, up into the stratosphere and down toward the earth’s surface. In response, the jet stream, instead of flowing predominantly west to east as usual, meanders more north and south. In winter, this change in flow sends warm air north from the subtropical oceans into Alaska and Greenland, but it also pushes cold air south from the Arctic on the east side of the Rockies. Meanwhile, across Eurasia, cold air from Siberia spills south into East Asia and even southwestward into Europe.

via Bundle Up, It’s Global Warming – NYTimes.com.

How To Mask A Robbery

A white man who robbed Ohio banks looked so convincing in a black-male disguise that an innocent man was held. That’s not exactly how SPFXMasks of Van Nuys had intended its masks to be used.

Mask before and after in a robbery

In October, a 20-year-old Chinese man who wanted asylum in Canada used one of the same company’s masks to transform himself into an elderly white man and slip past airport security in Hong Kong.

Authorities are even starting to think that the so-called Geezer Bandit, a Southern California bank robber believed for months to be an old man, might actually be a younger guy wearing one of the disguises made by SPFXMasks.

News coverage of the incidents has pumped up demand for the masks, which run from $600 to $1,200, according to company owner Rusty Slusser. But he says he’s not happy about it.Slusser opened SPFXMasks in 2003. His six-person crew uses silicone that looks and feels like flesh, down to the pores. Each strand of hair — and it’s human hair — is sewn on individually. Artists methodically paint the masks to create realistic skin tones. Slusser’s customers also include a few Hollywood celebrities who use the masks to fool paparazzi, but he declined to reveal their names.

via Masks so realistic they’re arresting the wrong guy – latimes.com.

Cure For The Common Cold?

“In any immunology textbook you will read that once a virus makes it into a cell, that is game over because the cell is now infected. At that point there is nothing the immune response can do other than kill that cell,” said Leo James, who led the research team.

But studies at the Medical Research Council’s laboratory have found that the antibodies produced by the immune system, which recognise and attack invading viruses, actually ride piggyback into the inside of a cell with the invading virus.

Once inside the cell, the presence of the antibody is recognised by a naturally occurring protein in the cell called TRIM21 which in turn activates a powerful virus-crushing machinery that can eliminate the virus within two hours – long before it has the chance to hijack the cell to start making its own viral proteins. “This is the last opportunity a cell gets because after that it gets infected and there is nothing else the body can do but kill the cell,” Dr James said.

via A cure for the common cold may finally be achieved as a result of a remarkable discovery in a Cambridge laboratory – Science, News – The Independent.

Sarah Palin the Sound and the Fury

Interesting that the author was a rural guy, who was sympathetic to her, before researching for this article.

Even as Sarah Palin’s public voice grows louder, she has become increasingly secretive, walling herself off from old friends and associates, and attempting to enforce silence from those around her. Following the former Alaska governor’s road show, the author delves into the surreal new world Palin now inhabits—a place of fear, anger, and illusion, which has swallowed up the engaging, small-town hockey mom and her family—and the sadness she has left in her wake.

via Sarah Palin the Sound and the Fury | Politics | Vanity Fair.

Is Cricket the Most Crooked Professional Sport?

In the most sensational sporting scandal ever, bowlers Mohammad Amir and Mohammad Asif delivered THREE blatant no-balls to order.Their London-based fixer Mazhar Majeed, who let us in on the betting scam for £150,000, crowed “this is no coincidence” before the bent duo made duff deliveries at PRECISELY the moments promised to our reporter.Armed with our damning dossier of video evidence, Scotland Yard launched their own probe into the scandal.

via Cricket in the dock as we expose match fixing scandal | England Pakistan Test, no balls, bribes | News Of The World.

The Science of Pouring Champagne

The researchers say they looked at two ways of pouring Champagne: the “traditional” method, with the liquid poured vertically to hit the bottom of the Champagne flute; and the “beer-like way,” executed by tilting the glass and gently sliding in the Champagne.

The scientists at the University of Reims say pouring bubbly at a slant, as you would a beer, preserves more of the tiny gas bubbles that improve the drink’s flavor and aromas.

The study – “On the Losses of Dissolved CO2 During Champagne Serving” – appears this week in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, a U.S. publication.

via Champagne fizzics: Science backs pouring sideways.

What The Russian Fires Reveal

The disastrous Russian heat wave has exposed a key failing of Russian society: The flow of information has stopped.

A New York journalist friend often drills me on the state of Russia. As I find myself saying, “I don’t know” more frequently, I think he has begun to suspect me of being evasive. The truth is, no one, inside or outside the country, knows what is going on in Russia—unless something catches fire or blows up. Until then, we are in a haze, in silence.

There is not a single newspaper that even strives to be national in its coverage. The television is not only controlled by the Kremlin; it is made by the Kremlin for the Kremlin, and it is entirely unsuited to gathering or conveying actual information. Even the Russian blogosphere is bizarrely fragmented: Researchers who “mapped” it discovered that, unlike any other blogosphere in the world, it consists of many non-overlapping circles. People in different walks of life, different professions, and different parts of the country simply do not talk to one another. The same is true of political institutions: Since the Russian government effectively abolished representative democracy, canceling direct elections, there is no reason—and no real mechanism—for Moscow politicians to know what is going on in the vast country. Nor do governors need concern themselves with the lives and the disasters in their regions—they, too, are no longer elected but are appointed by the Kremlin.

As a result, no one knows where the fires are burning—unless they are burning right next to you. The government, too, lacks the information that would be required to evacuate vulnerable towns and villages, to mobilize the resources necessary to fight the fires, or even to know exactly where they are burning.

via The deadly fires have exposed a key problem in today’s Russia: No one knows what’s going on. – By Masha Gessen – Slate Magazine.

Update on The Mexican Drug Wars

Good LA Times article about the war with the upstart Zeta and La Familia Cartels. Here is the dirty little secret that has been whispered around for awhile.

The arrests have been unevenly distributed. Fewer than 1,000 of the 53,000 drug-trafficking arrests studied in a report this year by Edgardo Buscaglia, an international expert on organized crime and a legal scholar at the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico, involved people working for the Sinaloa cartel, the oldest and mightiest of the narco-empires.

Those figures have led many in Mexico to conclude that Calderon’s government is going easy on the Sinaloa traffickers, whose leader is the country’s most wanted fugitive, billionaire Joaquin “Chapo” Guzman. The motive, this argument goes, would be to reduce violence by allowing one group to essentially win. Calderon has vehemently denied favoritism.

via Mexico drug cartels: Mexico drug cartels thrive despite Calderon’s offensive – latimes.com.